The Invasion of Canada
When the 13 colonies took up arms under the leadership of the Continental Congress, a number of other British territories in America stayed loyal to the Crown. The Floridas and Nova Scotia were sparsely populated and dominated by the British military. Quebec was ruled by a military governor, supported by a council appointed by the King. The great majority of Quebec's inhabitants, some 80,000 people, were French Catholics, the traditional enemies of the British colonies to the south.
The Quebec Act had pleased the old French landowning elite and the Church hierarchy. Less happy were French peasants, who had to pay the taxes supporting the new establishment, and the “old subjects,” Britons who had moved to Quebec and resented the privileges granted the French Catholics. This gave hope to Americans that Canada might rebel.
In Congress, the prospect of neutralizing Canada as a British base of operations overcame old prejudices. Emissaries were sent north to win over the Canadians. In June, Congress authorized an invasion.
One of the American representatives sent to negotiate with the Canadians was the venerable Benjamin Franklin. It was one of his few diplomatic failures.
Major General Philip Schuyler, the Continental commander in New York, wrestled with the many difficulties of accumulating men and supplies at Ticonderoga for an advance on Canada. He had to build a fleet of boats to carry his men up Lake Champlain. All this took time. The British governor of Quebec, General Guy Carleton, began preparations to resist the Americans.
When word of this reached Brigadier General Richard Montgomery at Ticonderoga, he set out for the north with a force of about 1,000 men. Montgomery had served as a captain in the British army and was a man of energy and determination. Schuyler caught up with the army, but ill health compelled him to turn command over to Montgomery.
On September 18, Montgomery laid siege to the British fort at St. Johns, hastily repaired and reinforced by Carleton. After a protracted resistance, the fort and its 600-man garrison surrendered on November 2. Montgomery moved on and captured Montreal on November 13, along with the few men and some boats that Carleton had collected for its defense. Carleton escaped almost alone to the city of Quebec.
While Schuyler was slowly assembling an army, George Washington organized a force of 1,100 men to attack Canada from another direction. On a map it looked possible for boatloads of troops to ascend the Kennebec River in Maine, negotiate some portages, and then float down the Chaudiere River to Quebec. Washington gave the redoubtable Benedict Arnold the command. The volunteer force included companies of Virginia and Pennsylvania riflemen, as well as New Englanders. Arnold set off from the site of present-day Augusta, Maine, on September 24.
“Yankee Doodle,” the song most associated with the American Revolution, was actually written by a doctor in the British army named Richard Schuckburg during the French and Indian War. It was a satire that expressed British disdain for American provincial troops.
The trek that looked so easy on paper soon turned into a nightmare. Arnold's army was heading into some of the most rugged wilderness in North America. The maps had not taken into account waterfalls, rapids, or backbreaking hills. The expedition's boats had been made hurriedly, and they began to fall apart. First it rained, then it snowed. So large a body of men scared off the game. When provisions ran low, the men starved. The soldiers boiled and ate rawhide and candles. A division of the army turned back. Arnold drove on the rest.
On November 8, Arnold reached the St. Lawrence River across from the city of Quebec with 650 emaciated soldiers. Arnold and his men had achieved one of the most heroic feats of endurance in American history. But 650 half-starved men was a paltry force to take against the great fortress of Quebec.
The Assault on QuebecArnold camped outside Quebec and waited for help. It arrived on December 3, when Montgomery arrived from Montreal with 300 men. The combined American army was still woefully small for the task before it. The expectation of Congress that the Canadians would rise up against the British proved a pipe dream. The French remained apathetic. The “old subjects” rallied to Governor Carleton.
With the onset of winter, the American position grew desperate. Arnold and Montgomery knew that the enlistments of many of their men would run out at the beginning of the new year. Facing disaster, the generals decided to gamble on an attack. On the evening of December 30, covered by a snowstorm, Arnold and Montgomery each led an assault on the city. Carleton was ready for them. Montgomery was killed at the head of his troops. Arnold was wounded. A few of Arnold's men, including the famous rifleman Daniel Morgan, made it into the city but were cut off and captured. Arnold regrouped and maintained a semblance of a siege, but the invasion of Canada had failed.
